


Keep on Marching

by KaenNoMai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Pre-Season/Series 01, Self-Harm, Stanford Era, Winchester Coping Mechanisms, look man dean is s u f f e r i n g, that is to say: b a d coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 18:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13530249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaenNoMai/pseuds/KaenNoMai
Summary: It's been a year since Sam left.Two states away is the closest Dean can get without wanting to shoot himself.





	Keep on Marching

Alone, Dean Winchester sat at a bar, sipping slowly on an amber liquid. Knowing the time of year, Dean drove to the middle of Nowhere, Idaho, looking for the most run-down, shabby bar he could find. Dean was pretty sure he found it. The bar seemed deserted, with only two other customers and the bartender to keep him company. Tonight, Dean wanted privacy. He wasn’t looking to get drunk, or even pick up a quick fling like he would usually be. No, tonight, Dean was reflecting on the events that had happened exactly a year ago, and the resultant changes that had happened since then. 

Exactly one year ago, Sam had stood up and said enough. He was done blindly following his father, done acting like he enjoyed hunts and the hard life that it brought with him. He was sick and tired of going to school and acting like his life was like everyone else. He was tired of explaining away bruises that had come from being thrown through a wall by a particularly vicious poltergeist.

Dean took a sip of the alcohol in the glass before him, glaring at it. 

Exactly one year ago, Sam had yelled to their father that he was done pretending to be Dean. He was not happy following their father’s every order to the letter, tired of the strict rules that he had to stick to. Sam didn't want to be Dean anymore when he grew up - now exposed to the monsters that went bump in the night, Sam wanted out. Sam constantly complained that Dean always followed dad's orders without notice or worry about himself. He didn’t want a life of one-night-stands intermittent with injuries like Dean had so often. 

Dean took a longer swallow of the liquid, hating the burn in his stomach as he thought of the unintentional – or intentional, Dean thought, depending on the day – snide comments on Dean’s life and his loyalty (blindness) when it came to John. Dean relished the burn as it washed down his throat.

Exactly one year ago, Sam had told John that he had a vision of a life without hunting, without traveling every few days, without death and without the stark darkness that so often encroached in their family. Sam wanted the apple pie life. A wife, children, a steady job – all things that hunting took from him. Sam, alone, and without help or input from his family, had applied to Stanford and gotten in, full ride. And even though Dean was only the grunt of the family, even he understood how difficult that was. 

Dean emptied his glass, raising his hand for another. 

Exactly one year ago, Sam decided was tired of having to move schools every other week or month, tired of always being the new kid. He was tired of notebooks with notes from five different classes and ten different schools in them, filled with subjects he half remembered yet longed to know. He hated playing catch up in one school, then being two months ahead in another in the span of a week. Sam hated the second hand clothes he got from Dean with rips and holes everywhere. Sam especially hated all the new technology everyone had, but John and Dean combined couldn’t afford. Sam wanted to be normal.

Dean huffed a laugh under his breath and drained half the glass in one go.

Exactly one year ago, Sam had up and decided that John and Dean’s best effort wasn’t good enough. That mom wasn’t a good enough reason to keep fighting the monsters in the dark. That the thing that killed their mother wasn’t worth the effort, the sacrifices.

Dean drank the rest of the glass in a second, and the next glass just as quickly. He hadn’t started out here to get drunk, but he wasn't opposed to ending up that way. Dean wasn't about to waste good alcohol on getting drunk, so he asked for the cheapest, nastiest beer they had on tap.

Exactly one year ago, Sam had grabbed his duffel and unsheathed his knife hidden up his sleeve once John grasped his arm. Sam had raised his knife to his defenseless father, no ounce of remorse in his eyes as he informed him that he was leaving. The only weapons John owned being on the other side of the motel room, John had acquiesced . Dean remembered hoping that Sam would come back, realize his mistake, but somehow Dean had known that this was serious, that he wasn’t coming back. 

Dean swallowed a mouthful of the beer. He enjoyed the shitty taste in his mouth, echoing the shitty feelings consuming him.

Exactly one year ago, the door had closed behind Sam, and his father had turned around with barely contained rage shining in his eyes. Dean’s body ached in remembrance of that night.

Dean gingerly picked up the beer and took another mouthful as the clock struck midnight.

Exactly one year ago, John had decided that having his sons with him was too much work and left Dean unconscious on the floor. When Dean had woken up, he had found a note on the dresser with a pair of coordinates and a short note. Hopefully you don’t fuck this one up. Ever since then, Dean looked forward to a phone call every week or so when John would yell at him for his fuck up of the week. John would give him another set of coordinates if he finished the last job, which wasn't often enough, in John's eyes.

Dean chugged the rest of the beer before accidentally slamming it down on the table too hard. The glass shattered, and Dean simply stared at the glass shards clutched in his hand. He was holding the shards too tightly, relishing the pain when he noticed the bartender glaring at him. Dean snarled back, but threw an amount of bills on the table and stumbling out of the shady bar. 

Exactly one year ago today, Dean was abandoned by his family and left to pick up the shattered pieces of his life like the shards of glass still clenched in his hand. 

Dean lurched to the one thing he had left. His Baby still sat in the moonlight, always waiting for him. Dean got in the car and started driving, even though realizing that driving in his condition was probably not going to end well. Blood smeared on the steering wheel as he clenched his jaw and realized that even if he ended up in a ditch, it was still going to be a better day than it was exactly one year ago. 

Exactly one year from then (and two years after that), Dean was going to be back at the same bar in Nowhere, Idaho, doing the same thing all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> so this could be part of a wip for a much more substantial spn fic, but i never know if i'll actually finish it and i don't want it to end up another abandoned story, so here's the "dean having an angsty day after sam left" middle ground i guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> also title is creds to "soldier" by fleurie go listen to it


End file.
